Rousseff Increases Brazilian Women’s Property Rights in Divorces

March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff,
the first woman to head the world’s sixth-biggest economy, plans
to increase women’s property rights in cases of divorce to mark
International Women’s Day.

Women who earn as much as 1,866 reais ($1,060) a month and
are enrolled under the government’s homebuilding program will be
entitled to ownership of the house in divorce settlements,
according to a decree published in an extraordinary edition of
the Official Gazette. The measure will require congressional
approval, Rousseff’s spokesman, Thomas Traumann, told reporters
yesterday.

In her first speech following her Oct. 31, 2010, election
victory, Rousseff pledged “to honor Brazil’s women” and to
bridge the gender gap in the country. Rousseff in a nationally
televised speech yesterday said that 40 percent of Brazilian
families are headed by women, up from 25 percent a decade
earlier.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that every woman still
owes something to herself and every man owes something to the
woman who’s next to him,” Rousseff said. Women on average earn
28 percent less than men in Brazil, according to a survey
published yesterday by the national statistics agency.

Wages, Property

A Senate committee on March 6 approved a bill that fines
companies that pay women less than men for the same work. The
Senate may now choose to send the bill to Rousseff or to a floor
vote.

Men and women in Brazil have equal rights under Brazil’s
constitution, so Rousseff’s decree could be challenged in court,
said Vania Marquez Saraiva, a partner at Brasilia-based law firm
Azevedo de Araujo & Saraiva Advogadas Associadas.

According to current law, a husband and wife each have an
equal share of any property they acquired as a couple, Saraiva
said. Under Rousseff’s decree, men will only have the right to
keep the family’s home after divorce if they retain custody of
the couple’s children.

Rousseff has 10 women in her Cabinet, including her Chief
of Staff Gleisi Hoffman, twice as many as her predecessor, Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva.

She also appointed Graca Foster as the first woman to run
the country’s biggest company, state-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA,
and Magda Chambriard as the first woman to head the country’s
oil regulator agency.

Brazil last year overtook the U.K. to become the
world’s sixth biggest economy, according to estimates by the
International Monetary Fund published in September.